PRO WRESTLING FREEDOMS/JUN KASAI PRODUCE
BLOOD X’MAS 2022
DECEMBER 25, 2022
KORAKUEN HALL
TOKYO, JAPAN
Merry belated Christmas everyone and welcome to the biggest party of the FREEDOMS year: Blood X’Mas was held on Christmas day but got aired on Samurai! TV on January 5, so here we are for a packed Korakuen crowd of 1,236 people. This was the second biggest Korakuen crowd of the last weeks, just sixty people less than All Japan had on the very same day. FREEDOMS strong~!
E.R.E (DOBUNEZUMI FUKKI, KYU MOGAMI & TOSHIYUKI SAKUDA) DEF. BRAHMAN KEI, BRAHMAN SHU & KIKUTARO (6:32)
It’s not an actual secret that I’m not the biggest fan of the Brahman Brothers and the pairing with Kikutaro was not better either. Typical Brahman Brothers match with a lot of “funny” plunder all around the ring. The usual bowling ball spot should not be missed, too. The injured E.R.E member Takayuki Ueki got involved and Sakuda pinned Kei for the win. **1/4
GAIA HOX, JUN MASAOKA, REKKA & TAKAHIRO KATORI DEF. DRAGON LIBRE, GENTARO, KAMUI & TATSUHITO TAKAIWA (7:11)
I love me some FREEDOMS Junior Heavyweight turmoil and I love to see new people like Gaia Hox from Taiwan here. He’s doing some dates in Japan recently alongside Ender Kara from Sweden. Pretty decent match with fast switches by the competitors so it didn’t get any boring in those seven minutes. Katori got the victory here over GENTARO and challenged King Of FREEDOM World Jr. Champion Kamui to a title match. Unfortunately, it wasn’t aired and went by on January 3 with a successful title defense from Kamui. ***
SCRAMBLE BUNKHOUSE DEATHMATCH
VIOLENTO JACK DEF. MINORU FUJITA (11:25)
Jack went nuts immediatly, attacked both Fujita and the ref and hit various weapons on the former Tag Team champion without any hesitation. Fujita bled like a pig after those attacks by the mexican, came back with a cheese grater and the match was even again. The match itself was too slow and uninteresting most of the times which was a letdown. The Jack match against Fuki in May was way better against a similar opponent. Jack won with the Mexican stretch. **1/2
HARDCORE TAG TEAM MATCH
MAMMOTH SASAKI & TAKASHI SASAK DEF. MASASHI TAKEDA & YUSAKU ITO (11:59)
Yusaku Ito from Dove Pro was a frequent guest in the second half of the year and I have to say I dig him though. Teaming with Takeda should be good for him in the end, first cool spot of them was when they had Takeda’s scissors and both of them scratched in their opponents foreheads. The tables were turned around just a few seconds later when Takashi and Mammoth did it with them. I really liked the match it had the right energy to it, some cool spots and a cool vibe with Takeda being a bit of a mentor. Mammoth grabbed the win over Ito with the 29 Years Old and earned them a tag title match. ***1/4
KING OF FREEDOM WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
SELF WEAPON DEATHMATCH
SOUL MEAT (TOMOYA HIRATA & TORU SUGIURA) © DEF. ALEX COLON & RINA YAMASHITA (13:27)
After the mandatory picture before the bell, the challenger immediately attacked the champions and a wild brawl erupted in Korakuen. Hirata tried to fly through the ropes but Yamashita smashed a chair against him and the isolation of one half of the tag champs began. Hirata came back, threw the “Deathmach Amazon” into the white christmas tree covered in barbed wire and fought off Alex Colon, too. The GCW Team tried to isolate each Soul Meat member from each other, Sugiura fought them off at first but got caught by Colon with a flying lighttube smash onto the head. Rina went wild, punched everyone including her partner and then forced everyone to get some gusset plates to the forehead for a nasty headbutt session. Ouch! It became bloody, some tubes were destroyed and Colon got sandwiched by Soul Meat and eventually got pinned after a beautiful Moonsault by Hirata. ***3/4
KING OF FREEDOM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
GLASS & FLUORESCENT LIGHTTUBES DEATHMATCH
DREW PARKER © DEF. JUN KASAI (24:34)
The champ came to the ring with the lighttube cross and the crown of thorns, like Kasai did sometimes, and it was a perfect way to start the whole scenery because it was Kasai who brought Parker to deathmatch wrestling with his Tokyo Sports match of the year against Ryuji Ito from 2009. It felt big, the pinnacle of deathmatch wrestling, both guys in white started the fight pretty slow with a bunch of lock ups and tests of strenghts. Kasai had enough and wanted to start “blood christmas” and smashed a tube onto Parker, the latter did the same as a revenge just moments later.
Kasai prepared a glass plate onto two chairs but of course he was the one who got smashed through the plate. The two combatants hit each other with several lighttubes and even dart before Kasai tried to hit his Pearl Harbor Splash with tubes on Parker but the champ raised his shoulders right in time to keep his title. Kasai nearly killed Parker when they both were up high on the turnbuckle, he put some skewers to the welshman’s forehead and then put him through some plates with a tiger destroyer from the turnbuckle. This had to be the end but it wasn’t! The champ kicked out after a lariat and the attempft of the second Pearl Harbor Splash was denied when Parker switched the razor blade board to Kasai’s knees. Insane stuff! But how hard Kasai tried to beat Parker it wasn’t meant to be. On the other side Parker needed all maneuvers out of his repertoire and two swanton bombs assisted with lighttubes to defend his title. Their first meeting goes to Drew Parker! ****3/4
FINAL THOUGHTS
The main event was obviously the match of the night and ended a great year for Drew Parker with a successful defense against the legend himself. While the other matches were nowhere near good as the main event, Blood X’Mas was an entertaining two-hour show.
